CDB to engage in a national private sector consultation

WITH more emphasis being placed on the business community leading economic revival and growth, a regional financial institution is embarking on a private sector consultation to chart the way forward on a growth strategy led by that sector.

It is the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) which is taking on this initiative, as announced by Ms. Lisa Harding, an officer of the Bank.

“We have embarked on a national private sector consultation across the region to find out from the private sector what the issues are, and to prioritise what are the constraints on the way forward,” said Ms. Harding, who is Operations Officer in the Private Sector Development Division of the Bank.

She recalled that two weeks ago there was a high-level Caribbean forum organised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other aid donors.

According to her, that was particularly interesting, because even the IMF, which tends to focus more on the economic side of things, will be looking at how the private sector has to take a more leadership role in the process.

Ms. Harding said that recognising the importance of the private sector, the CDB has started to look at its internal private sector-led strategies.

According to her, “We have decided to focus on such areas as an enabling environment, access to affordable financing, and capacity building and direct support to the firm.”

Rescue call to private sector

The CDB Officer remarked also that in terms of executing their strategy, the Bank has always been involved in partnership arrangements.

As such, the CDB will be working with its partners “so that we can have deeper interventions with greater impact for all”.

“Our model has been to lend through financial intermediaries and to provide capacity building for them where necessary,” said Ms. Harding, who noted as well that they have also been focusing  on micro-financing institutions.

“We find you have a lot of the informal sectors [which] do not have access to financing,” she noted.

She said that the Caribbean growth forum, an initiative by the CDB, the World Bank, IDB and others, has been taken throughout the Caribbean where they are looking at inclusive growth and facilitating dialogue on growth incorporating non-traditional partners to the table.

“So whereas before we would have had private sector and governments and that would be the end of it, we have now incorporated civil society and academia to add some richness of the discussions,” Ms. Harding added.

 Since the onset of the global economic crunch and the prolonged nature of the crisis, the private sector is being called on to become more innovative and to take the initiatives to rescue Caribbean economies, many of which are showing economic fatigue.